Book Review: On Getting Out of Bed
On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden & Gift of Living by Alan Noble (InterVarsity Press, 2023).
Rarely have I read a book whose title fit it more perfectly. In On Getting Out of Bed, my friend Alan Noble writes about the all-too-widespread experience of “mental suffering”—including, but not limited to, mental illness. We experience such suffering for different reasons and at different levels, but all of us, Alan believes, experience it at some point: “Suffering—even profound mental affliction and personal tragedy—is a normal part of human life. … Life is far more difficult than we let on.”
And when life overwhelms us with its difficulty, it can be the hardest thing in the world just to get out of bed.
Alan strikes this keynote again and again over the course of this short but intense book, which distills the experience of depression to its essentials. He writes with deep compassion for the suffering, out of his own experiences with it. And he keeps his message simple: “Place it in the forefront of your mind so that you don’t lose sight of it: I will get out of bed. Put on my shoes. Walk downstairs. Make coffee. And so on.”
He empathizes with those whose minds send them distorted and deceptive messages, he urges them to seek treatment, but at the same time, he encourages them to find and claim what agency they have. Believe that life is good, he tells us, no matter what your mind is telling you at this moment. Believe that your own life bears witness of that goodness to those around you. And “do the next thing.”
Alan writes explicitly from a place of faith—understandably, since his book was released by a faith-based publisher. Readers of different faiths, or of no faith, who pick it up may take issue with his belief that it’s God who makes life worth living. But even those who disagree may find wisdom in his observation that other forces in this world seek to use us and then discard us when they’re done with us. (I’ve had that experience more than once; perhaps you have too.) And that helps to make sense of his argument for a God who wants to love us, not to use us, and whose love makes life good.
At just over a hundred pages, and with its stripped-down style, On Getting Out of Bed is very different from Alan’s previous book, You Are Not Your Own (which I interviewed him about here in January 2022). But while that was a book that stimulated the intellect and the imagination, this one speaks directly to the heart, especially the heart of those in despair. At times when no other message will get through, this one just might: Believe that life is worth living, believe you have a role to play, and get out of bed.
Book Links:
On Getting Out of Bed on Amazon
On Getting Out of Bed on Bookshop